


Family

by untakenbeepun



Category: Kaleidotrope (Podcast)
Genre: Christmas fic, Fluff, Other, centres around drew's shitty parents, i can't believe i wrote a christmas fic, minor angst i guess, my god i need to learn how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untakenbeepun/pseuds/untakenbeepun
Summary: Drew doesn't like Christmas, but he'll make an exception for Harrison.





	Family

Drew didn’t like Christmas very much.

Part of it was to do with all those bloody Christmas carols that were played non-stop every second of the day until you were sick to death of them. Look, there are only so many times you can listen to that blasted Mariah Carey song, alright?

Part of it was to do with gifts. He’d never been a particularly good gift-giver. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to give out presents – it was that with finding presents came that agonizing anxiety that whatever he’d got wasn’t good enough. Drew was convinced that there were secret rules and etiquette about how much you were supposed to spend on presents that everyone knew but him. He was pretty sure there were secret rules and etiquette about _everything_ that everyone knew but him.

Or at least, that was what he thought every time he’d given his mother a present and she’d pursed her lips, given a slight roll of her eye, and then tucked it away into a cupboard and never looked at it again.

Part of it was the aggressive false festive cheer forced on everybody, and if you didn’t care to join in, you were a cynic and a grump.

Drew could have done without the whole holiday, to be honest.

Harrison, of course, approached Christmas with as much gusto as he approached everything in his life.

One day, he woke to an empty bed, opened one eye to look blearily around the room, and spotted Harrison in the corner, wrestling with a Christmas tree. 

“What are you doing?” Drew said, although it was pretty obvious.

Harrison’s voice was far too bright for seven o’clock in the morning. “It’s Christmas!”

“It’s barely December.”

“Drew, we’re halfway through the month.” 

“Come back to bed.”

Harrison dropped the section of tree he was trying to assemble, picked up a small length of tinsel, tying it into a halo and putting it on Drew’s head.

Drew took it off and dropped in on the floor.

Harrison scowled, curling up on the bed next to him. “Why don’t you like Christmas?”

“It’s overrated,” Drew said, rolling onto his stomach and pressing his face into the pillow. “Can we go back to sleep now?”

“Not until you tell me the real reason why you don’t like Christmas,” Harrison said, pressing his chin into Drew’s chest, looking up at his face.

Drew sighed, running his fingers through Harrison’s hair. “It’s just. All that family obligation. Having to sit at home in silence while my cousins exchange awkward small talk. It’s not worth the plane flight.”

That look passed over Harrison’s face again, the same look that came up on his face every time Drew mentioned his parents. He pressed his lips together, a dark look passing through his eyes, before he shifted up beside Drew, arm looping around his waist. Drew rolled towards him, tucking his head in the crook of Harrison’s neck, pressing a feather-light kiss to Harrison’s collarbone.

“Don’t go home,” Harrison said, after a while.

“What?”

“Don’t go home,” he said again. “Tell them you’re sick. Far too sick to leave your bed. Definitely too sick to travel all the way back to England.”

“What, and stay here alone when you go back to Rochester?” 

“Well,” Harrison said, his eyes darting away from Drew’s, suddenly shy, “you could always come home with me.”

Drew blinked. “What?”

“Come home with me,” Harrison said. “Meet my mom. See my childhood room. Curl up with me and make me watch all those musicals you’re shocked I haven’t seen yet.” 

“I...” Drew was lost for words. “I... I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Harrison’s locked their fingers together. “You’re not intruding. You could never.”

“I don’t know...” 

“It’d feel wrong without you there.” Harrison said, fingers of his other hand trailing across Drew’s cheek. “Christmas is about being with your family. You’re part of my family now.”

Drew’s heart lurched, and he had to bite his tongue to stop tears from springing to his eyes. 

“Drew,” Harrison said softly, after Drew hadn’t spoken for a few moments, “say something.”

“I’m,” Drew began, but he was too choked up to speak. He tried again. “I’m part of your family?”

“Oh, _Drew_ ,” Harrison said, his voice flooding with fondness. He wrapped Drew up in his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “ _of course_ you are.”

Drew didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything, he just let himself be pulled into Harrison’s embrace, for once, letting himself feel warm and safe and loved.

“Yes,” he managed to say after a long pause. “Yes, yes, I want to go home with you. I’d like that so much.”

Harrison squealed, the noise reaching a pitch that made Drew wince. “Great! This is going to be so amazing, Drew, you don’t even know!”

Harrison kept talking, but his words washed over Drew, who was having trouble fighting the smile that kept pinching his cheeks. All he could think about was his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest, his lungs feeling like they’d tasted their very first breath of air, and Harrison, beautiful, perfect, wonderful Harrison.

Harrison was his _family._

It was already shaping up to be the best Christmas yet.


End file.
